Short Communication Phylogenetic relationships of Trachylepis skink species from Madagascar and the Seychelles (Squamata: Scincidae) Alexandra Lima a,b,⇑ , D. James Harris a,b , Sara Rocha a,c , Aurélien Miralles d , Frank Glaw e , Miguel Vences f a Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos (CIBIO), Campus Agrário de Vairão, R. Padre Armando Quintas, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal b Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, R. Campo Alegre s/n, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal c Departamento de Bioquímica, Genética e Inmunología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Vigo, Vigo 36310, Spain d CNRS-UMR5175, Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), 1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier cedex 5, France e Zoologische Staatssammlung München, Münchhausenstr. 21, 81247 München, Germany f Zoological Institute, Division of Evolutionary Biology, Technical University of Braunschweig, Mendelssohnstraße 4, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany article info Article history: Received 10 September 2012 Revised 1 February 2013 Accepted 2 February 2013 Available online 19 February 2013 Keywords: Squamata Trachylepis Western Indian Ocean Biogeography Transmarine dispersal Multilocus phylogeny abstract Lizards of the genus Trachylepis are a species-rich group of skinks mainly inhabiting Africa, Madagascar, and several other islands in the western Indian Ocean. All except one probably introduced species of Madagascan Trachylepis are endemic. Two species groups have been distinguished on the basis of subocular scale shape but their phylogenetic relationships remained unclear. We inferred a multilocus phylogeny of the Madagascan Trachylepis species, based on a concatenated dataset of 3261 bp from 3 mitochondrial and 4 nuclear genes with a dense Madagascan taxon sampling and find high support for the monophyly of the endemic Madagascan Trachylepis. The two species groups in Madagascar are highly supported as clades. The highland species T. boettgeri is nested in the T. aureopunctata species group of mainly arid-adapted species, suggesting a colonization of highland swamps by ancestors inhabiting dry western Madagascar. The Seychellois species were sister to the T. maculilabris/T. comorensis clade, suggesting their origin directly out of Africa as with Seychellois chameleons. In Madagascar, a high intra- specific molecular variation was confirmed for T. gravenhorstii, T. elegans, and T. vato, indicating a need for taxonomic revision. Ó 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The genus Trachylepis, as currently defined, comprises a mainly African-Madagascan clade of scincid lizards (skinks) in the subfamily Lygosominae. It was part of the originally cosmopolitan genus Mabuya prior to its division into several genera (Mausfeld et al., 2002; Bauer, 2003; Hedges and Conn, 2012). This clade (Mabuya sensu lato) of lygosomines probably originated in Asia, based on both morphological (Greer, 1977) and molecular data (Mausfeld et al., 2000; Honda et al., 2003; Whiting et al., 2006). Subsequently these skinks expanded westwards, undergoing a ma- jor radiation in Africa (Trachylepis, sensu Bauer, 2003)(Mausfeld et al., 2002) and finally reaching South-America (Mabuya)(Honda et al., 2003) and Cape Verde (Chioninia, sensu Mausfeld et al., 2002)(Brehm et al., 2001; Miralles et al., 2010). Various molecular phylogenetic analyses have elucidated the evolutionary relation- ships of these lizards in Asia (Mausfeld and Schmitz, 2003), Africa (Mausfeld et al., 2000; Mausfeld-Lafdhiya et al., 2004; Boumans et al., 2007; Portik et al., 2011) and the Neotropics (Whiting et al., 2006; Miralles and Carranza, 2010; Hedges and Conn, 2012). Furthermore, their migration routes between these conti- nents (Carranza and Arnold, 2003; Honda et al., 2003) and patterns of colonization of several islands (Brehm et al., 2001; Mausfeld et al., 2002; Jesus et al., 2005; Miralles et al., 2010; Rocha et al., 2010; Hedges and Conn, 2012; Sindaco et al., 2012) have been the subject of molecular phylogenetic studies. Of the 78 Trachylepis species currently recognized (Uetz, 2012), 13 are endemic to Madagascar (Glaw and Vences, 2007). Additionally there is one non-endemic species, T. comorensis, which occurs on the Madagascan offshore islet of Nosy Tanikely, possibly as the result of an anthropogenic introduction from the Comoros (Köhler et al., 1997; Rocha et al., 2010). Another species described purportedly from Madagascar, T. betsileana, is probably based on a mislabeled specimen from Africa, not Madagascar, and has not been detected on the island since the collection of the holotype (Nussbaum et al., 1999). Many of the Trachylepis spe- cies occurring in the Madagascan biodiversity hotspot (Myers et al., 2000) have been described in the last 15 years (e.g., Nussbaum et al., 1999). This region presents one of the richest and most 1055-7903/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2013.02.001 ⇑ Corresponding author at: Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos (CIBIO), Campus Agrário de Vairão, R. Padre Armando Quintas, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal. Fax: +351 252 661 780. E-mail address: allimawork@gmail.com (A. Lima). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 67 (2013) 615–620 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ympev